


a heart the size of serena's

by ivermectin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Serena van der Woodsen, Dan Humphrey is Not Gossip Girl, F/F, F/M, Georgina Sparks being Georgina Sparks (referenced), Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, POV Serena van der Woodsen, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con (mentioned), Season 1 Characterisation only, Underage Drinking, canon diverges after s1e14: The Blair Bitch Project, it's canon and it happens in the first episode, standard gossip girl content warnings, the georgerena is unhealthy and unreciprocated, we don't go anywhere near that land mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26250106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: The games Serena van der Woodsen played with Georgina Sparks once upon a time weren't exactly healthy, and she knows that. The romance Serena van der Woodsen has with Dan Humphrey, on the other hand - that she wants to keep.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Serena van der Woodsen, Past Georgina Sparks/Serena van der Woodsen, Slight Chuck Bass & Serena van der Woodsen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	a heart the size of serena's

**Author's Note:**

> i think the tags cover all warnings - let me know if i missed anything (& pls read the tags b4 u read the fic!!) 
> 
> i felt like season 2 itself was p OOC from season 1 (heheh) and that there was no real reason for Dan and Serena to have broken up the way they did so!! i fixed it. you're welcome!

"I don't know what to do," Serena admits. She takes the glass Chuck offers gladly, chugs it down without giving it a second glance. She doesn't particularly trust him or like him, but it's not like Chuck Bass can do anything worse than Georgina Sparks, and she could do with as many allies as she can possibly get. "I thought we were done with all this. I thought it was over." 

"Well," Chuck drawls, "you know how _she_ is. She wasn't ever planning on letting you go." 

"What do we do?" Serena asks. Chuck doesn't say anything, he just watches her. There's no judgement in his posture, no scorn in his eyes. He looks just as clueless as her.

Serena still doesn't particularly like Chuck, or like the fact that he's her step-brother, but he sure does mix a mean drink. She raises her glass, and he tips it off with something again.

-

Serena wants to talk, but she doesn't want to talk to Chuck. She wants to talk to Dan, with his quiet and careful sincerity and consideration, but she knows that isn't an option. If Dan knew the extent of this, he'd run away. She could talk to Eric, he already knew some of it, but ultimately, as an elder sister she couldn't help but remember that her job was to protect him from things like this, not use him as a therapist. Her mother isn't even an option- Lily Bass is cold, more concerned with their reputation and image than with the flesh and blood existence of her daughter. 

She doesn't even realise she's crying until Chuck's suddenly placing a hand on her knee, startlingly platonic, like a real brother. 

"Hey," he says, and she thinks through a drunken haze, that if he made an effort not to be an asshole, he could be nice actually, "should I get you Blair? Or Dan?" 

Serena thinks maybe Nate would be a good person to talk to, but then she knows she needs to talk to somebody who doesn't know her. She frowns, thinking.

"If you don't know anyone worth talking to," Chuck says, the sneer in his voice blatant and overlying again, but the look in his eyes almost concerned, "we could call in a helpline, talk to someone anonymously." 

"The Ostroff centre," Serena says, and she's drunk enough that it feels like a good idea. "Do you have a phone? Not your cell, an old-fashioned lanline thing." 

-

Chuck leaves her there with some vodka and the phone, and a promise to come back or bring back whoever she wants. And she thinks she could talk to him, but she remembers how she and Dan had needed to rescue Jenny from him, all those months ago, what he'd been trying to do when Dan punched him in the face, and she feels a shudder passing through her body. And then she thinks of Georgina, and all those nights being Savannah and Svetlana, and she thinks _am I any better than Chuck Bass?_ and she is afraid the answer is no.

At least Chuck was openly an asshole. Serena needed to hide behind a girl who didn't even exist to be the bitch she really was.

She dials, and waits. When someone picks up, she asks for a counsellor. 

"I don't want an intervention, and I've heard a lot about the priority you give to securing confidentiality," she says. "I just need to talk." 

-

"Okay," the woman on the other end says. She sounds pleasant, friendly and compassionate, not unlike Dorota, Serena thinks drunkenly. "I've heard enough about how much you hate yourself, and how ashamed you are about something terrible you did that you refuse to tell me about. Instead, do you think you could tell me more about pretending to be somebody else? Why did you do it?"

It all boils down to that, Serena thinks. Being Savannah. And she'd loved being Savannah, hadn't she? Loved it, knowing that Georgina was there by her side, that they were a team, an undefeatable duo, knowing that they'd take men too old for them to bed together, giggling all through it, and they would take each other's clothes off, and kiss while the man touched himself, and they'd lie down on either side of him, naked, and Serena could often not remember the men, but she loved the way Georgina made her feel, free and light and made of air, like there was nothing she couldn't do. The drugs, the wine, the strange men, running around a city laughing in the dead of night, knowing they looked rich enough that people knew better than to mess with them, the skinny dipping, the times they broke the law, Georgina shoplifting just to prove she could, putting stolen makeup on Serena's face later. Helping her with her lingerie -

and there was only one rule to being Savannah and Svetlana, and that was don't let the feelings drag anywhere else, because Serena van der Woodsen can't possibly be in love with Georgina Sparks. But morning after morning, Serena woke up with patches in her memory where the men should be, and all she could remember, all she wanted to remember, was Georgina, Georgina, Georgina - the smell of her skin like posh French lotion and acetic acid, the way her body felt under Serena's, soft and yielding, the way her body felt over Serena's, a steady anchor. 

Georgina was reckless, dangerous, lethal, like a forest fire, and Serena was a free spirit and a rebel and a badass, and she loved the light. She ran into it. 

"I think," she says, swallowing. "I think I was in love." 

-

Later, she tells Chuck where she's going. Wears a coat. Heads over to the loft. 

Dan answers the door, which is a relief - as much as she likes his family and Vanessa, she doesn't have the energy to deal with any of that just then.

"Hey," he says, going in for a quick and chaste kiss. He quirks an eyebrow. "Is everything alright?" 

Serena looks at him, wanting to say no, but somehow unable to do it. She can't lie to him any longer, but she's scared of the weight the truth carries - the way it will implode and potentially ruin them.

"I'm guessing that's a no," he says. "Want to walk and talk about it? Get something to eat from a shop down the road?" 

Serena nods. She takes his hand before he reaches out for her, and they walk down the stairs and into the cold night air together.

"I've done things in the past," she says, after almost ten minutes of walking in silence, observing Dan's patient silence. "Things I'm not proud of."

"Okay, who hasn't?" Dan asks.

"Dan, you don't understand," she says. "The things I've done... they're really bad." 

Dan waits for her to go on.

"I want to be able to tell you," she admits. "But it's difficult for me to talk about it. I've only told one other person."

"Blair?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Some counsellor at the Ostroff centre. Really sobered me up, despite all the drinking I did before the call, you know?" 

Dan shakes his head slightly. Of course he doesn't know - Dan Humphrey is a sweetheart, he certainly doesn't have something like this hanging over him.

"So," he says cautiously. "It sounds serious." 

"It is," Serena says. "But I'm trying to handle it."

"Okay," he says. He turns, kisses her cheek. "I'm here for you when you need it, if you need it, okay? Whatever your truth is, however bad it is, we can face it together."

"If you knew, I don't think you'd be saying that," Serena says.

"Come on Serena," Dan says, and it's gentle while also being frustrated, which is typical Dan, really. "I know you, okay? You don't delight in causing damage like Blair does. Whatever you've done, it's eating you up inside, and you're clearly feeling bad about it. It doesn't matter how bad it is. You're never going to do something like that again, are you?" 

Serena stares at him, startled by his trust in her. "I'm never going to do that again. But how can you be so sure that you know who I am?"

He smiles, puts his arm around her waist. "You're the love of my life, you know that. I think I know you reasonably well, and if it turns out that I don't, I'd be willing to learn whatever I needed to. Now. Bagels?" 

-

And in the cafe, while they eat bagels sitting at a quaint table for two, some Avril Lavigne song playing in the background, Serena says, softly, "There's something else. Something important." 

Dan wipes sugar off his face with a paper napkin. "Oh?" 

"I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual," Serena admits. "But I, I don't know, it's complicated. I've only ever liked one girl, really. And the way I felt about her... it's nothing compared to how I feel about you." 

"And how do you feel about me?" Dan asks, but he's smiling.

"You already know that," Serena says, but she's smiling too. "So you don't mind?"

Dan's expression gets very serious. "Why would I mind? If anything this is a compliment. So many hot girls at Constance you could've gotten with, and you're here with me? Can't say _I_ understand that." 

Serena rolls her eyes, giggles. "I can't believe that's what you're taking away from this!"

Dan gives her that pseudo-serious look that he always does before trying (and usually succeeding) to make her laugh. "What's not to believe?" 

-

And Serena walks back home, arm linked with Dan's. She says to him, "It's complicated, but I used to pretend to be somebody else. A girl called... Savannah?" She spins it into a joke, laughs a little at the end, slightly nervous. 

Dan frowns, not rising to the bait. "Why would you want to be anybody else? You're Serena van der Woodsen. You're perfect."

"In Dan Humphrey's eyes, maybe," she teases, but something in her chest that's been heavy suddenly loosens up, and she feels like she could fly. "I wasn't always like this, you know." 

"Yeah, I know," Dan says. "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

"What do I have?" Serena asks. 

"You have a Humphrey," Dan says, and he kisses her again. "Don't be afraid to talk to me."

"I won't," Serena says, and this time, she means it. 

She's used to running away from Georgina. She will not run away from Dan. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're super surprised by the lack of blair waldorf in this, rest assured: SO AM I


End file.
